Displacement
by starofoberon
Summary: Adopted challenge CCOAC. A tragic New year's Eve turn in an ugly case triggers hot buttons for the agents on site. Short, dark, slash-free and almost fluffless.


A/N: This is certainly a darker piece than I had planned to write, but … for better or for worse I followed it where it was determined to go.

Written as an adopted challenge on CCOAC. Pairing was Reid/Hotchner, prompts were New year's resolution, paper hat, innocent kiss. Fluff-less and slash-free

**Displacement**

"I – I made a New Year's resolution," Spencer Reid confided to the solid, stolid man beside him. He wasn't sure why this seemed to be the right moment to say it. On the face of it, it could not have been a more wildly inappropriate venue.

Hotchner might have made a sound of recognition. It was hard to tell with the wind whining in the power lines and the bare tree branches and whipping their scarves and collars around their heads. Nothing showed on his face. His face was in professional mask mode, hard and unforgiving.

It was thirty-six minutes until midnight. Thirty-six minutes until 2011, at least in the Central Standard Time Zone. Thirty-six minutes until all things were renewed, especially hopes and promises.

The small, pale, naked boy sprawled before them had probably been there for two days. His skinny cyanotic body was frozen to the ground. Forty-eight hours they had gone full-tilt, sure that the UNSUB they pursued would follow his standard schedule. Sure that this boy, while he might be terrified, was still alive somewhere.

Chaz Hough's remains had already been here, on the fringes of an abandoned industrial park, miles from anything like civilization, when their jet landed on Thursday.

Around them, crime scene technicians and local law enforcement personnel carried out their grim tasks.

"Get the image to Garcia," Hotchner said at last. "Or Kevin. Whoever's up tonight."

"Barb," Reid reminded him. "Loan from Counter-Terrorism, remember?"

"Yeah." No energy in his voice. No hope. No promise.

Reid snapped a few pictures with his camera phone and uploaded them to Barb back at Quantico. She was a good worker, fast and accurate, but almost robotic, like the 911 operator she had been when she started her career. Which, at the moment, was a good thing. Reid was not sure how much personality he could handle.

And there they stood, the man staring at, or possibly past, the body of a child the same age as his own son – and the man beside him, glancing constantly at his boss, the man who in background and temperament was so similar to Spencer's own father.

"What was your resolution?" Hotchner asked suddenly. Eyes still fixed on what Spencer knew he would regard as his personal failure.

If anything, it seemed even more wildly inappropriate now. "I promised myself I'm going to make an effort to get back in touch with my father. Build some bridges."

"That's good."

Reid also looked at the pathetic little body. "Yeah. Because – you never know."

"No. You don't."

When there was nothing left that the BAU could do on site, the two of them trudged back to the SUV. As they opened the doors, fireworks erupted on the northwestern horizon, and the sounds of shots and horns and shouts from passing vehicles could be heard, carried on the frigid wind.

"Happy New Year," Hotch said sourly.

Reid settled down into the passenger seat. "Yeah."

Half a mile along, the exhaustion and horror and godawful miserable failure hit Reid, hard. "Stop," he gasped. "Anywhere, just – pull over."

Hotchner pulled into the empty parking lot of a small manufacturing company. Reid fumbled himself free from his seat belt and scurried as far away from the car as he could. He doubled over and puked up what felt like everything he had eaten since Thanksgiving. Then he blew his nose and wiped his eyes and mouth.

He leaned one arm against the side of the building, still catching his breath, and looked up, hoping that Hotch had not seen him lose it.

But Aaron was not in the car.

"He thinks about you," the familiar low voice said beside him.

For an instant, Reid was lost. _Who thinks about me? The UNSUB? _

"Your father," Hotch said, sensing the question. "He cares about you. Why do you think he stalks you all over Google? He thinks about you – and he's proud of you."

"It would have been so much easier for him," Reid managed, "if I had been like him, like that kid." Gesturing feebly back toward the crime scene with the arm that wasn't propping him upright. "Closure, nothing to tie him to Mom, a clean break."

So swiftly that Reid wasn't sure what was happening until it was over, powerful hands seized the front of his parka and slammed him up against the side of the building. "It is _never_ easier that way," Hotchner snarled. "_Never!_"

"But he wouldn't care–"

"Reid, how could he _not_ care?" Aaron roared. "Can you give the guy just a little credit? Just a l_ittle_ bit of leeway to be a human being, a weak, fallible human being? One who sometimes makes stupid choices for what he thought were smart reasons?"

And they fell into each other's arms, Aaron Hotchner-as-William Reid and Spencer-Reid-as-Jack Hotchner, each clutching at the family member that he most wanted, most needed to embrace in that moment, clinging and hating and mourning and sobbing in the subzero night. For two, possibly three minutes, they stood entangled together there, tears freezing on their faces.

Finally, Reid said, "I'm sorry," and he didn't know whether he was apologizing for puking or for insulting his father or for losing his shit on the job. Or whether he was talking to Aaron Hotchner or his father.

Hotch gave him one last squeeze. "It's all right," he said, his voice warm, tender. And Reid had no idea whether he was reassuring himself, or Spencer, or maybe even talking to Jack, who also often had a missing dad. "It's all right." He planted a single quick kiss on Spencer Reid's forehead. "It's all going to be all right."

Without speaking, they returned to the SUV. Except for quiet, case related conversations with Morgan and Prentiss and Rossi on speaker phone, not another word was spoken until they pulled into to hotel parking garage.

"When this mess is over," Reid said, "we need to have a party. The New Year's Eve party that we all missed."

He half expected Hotchner to challenge him, to remind him that Spencer had claimed not to "get" the "whole party thing."

Instead, he nodded as he shut off the ignition. "You're on," he sighed. "I'll bring the hats and the noisemakers."


End file.
